Search Criminal Records

Written by Jeremy Horelick

Who, aside from law enforcement officers and government officials, has the need to search criminal records? The answer is anyone who owns a business and must hire employees to run it. Shop-owners, restaurateurs, car dealers, electronics retailers, and doctors are just a few of the professionals who regularly search criminal records to make sure their subordinates are "clean."

Anyone in the transportation business is also likely to search criminal records, especially for DUI, DWI, and vehicular manslaughter convictions. Any of the above is grounds for rejecting an applicant or for terminating an employee who has concealed his or her past legal troubles. While this strikes some civil libertarians as unfair, imagine what the response would be to a limo or cab company that knowingly hired a convicted felon who then went out and claimed a life (or lives) on the road.

Other People Who Search Criminal Records

Colleges and universities also search criminal records, not only of their faculty members, but of their students as well. With the potential liabilities that abound on school campuses, administrators must protect themselves in an attempt to avoid lawsuits that arise from charges of negligence. Students caught in the crucible of stress and heavy workloads are vulnerable to breakdowns, just as overtaxed professors and teaching assistants are. It behooves any school to know if and where volatility may exist in its ranks.

The military is another institution that routinely orders criminal records checks, for obvious reasons. Not only are recruits given firearms, but they are trained to use them. Moreover, from a foreign relations standpoint, U.S. troops are also ambassadors of our nation and are therefore held (ideally) to high standards of professional conduct, recent events overseas notwithstanding.